Vanguard Announces Key Investment Management Appointments

Firm bolsters active management roster with senior hires

VALLEY FORGE, PA (November 19, 2019) — Vanguard today announced a number of key appointments across its investment management division as part of ongoing efforts to build and expand the capabilities of its global team of more than 500 portfolio managers, analysts, and traders.

“Vanguard continues to strengthen its investment teams with talented, passionate, and intellectually diverse investment professionals who are focused on producing superior results and creating long-term value for our investors,” said Vanguard Chief Investment Officer Greg Davis. “We’re committed to finding the best talent to fit within our collaborative, team-based approach to portfolio management.”

The appointments include portfolio manager changes, external hires, and internal personnel rotations across Vanguard’s Fixed Income Group and Quantitative Equity Group. Together with Vanguard’s Equity Index Group, the three investment management groups oversee more than $5.2 trillion, or 89% of Vanguard’s total assets under management. The remaining 11% of assets are managed by 25 leading advisory firms around the globe.

Vanguard Fixed Income Group

For nearly 40 years, Vanguard Fixed Income Group has been managing active and index bond funds across a range of maturities in the taxable and tax-exempt markets. The Group also oversees Vanguard’s money market funds. Using its deep investment capabilities, disciplined security selection process, and rigorous risk management techniques, the team has delivered consistent, long-term performance to Vanguard clients. The global team comprises more than 180 investment professionals and is responsible for the oversight of $1.7 trillion in assets.

• Sara Devereux recently joined Vanguard as principal and global head of rates. Her team manages all active rates, money market portfolios, and rates-related strategies across our active taxable fixed income franchise. Ms. Devereux brings more than 20 years of experience in mortgage-backed securities and structured products. Prior to joining Vanguard, she served as a partner at Goldman Sachs. She succeeds Ron Reardon, who has retired after 18 years with Vanguard.
  
  
• Jeffrey Johnson, CFA^®, will relocate to Malvern, PA as co-head of Bond Indexing – Americas, after leading Vanguard’s Asia-Pacific Fixed Income Group in Melbourne, Australia. His previous roles include head of Investment Strategy Group for Vanguard Asia-Pacific and senior investment analyst on Vanguard’s Manager Search & Oversight team.
  
  
• Nathan Will, JD, has assumed the role of head of municipal credit research. Mr. Will leads a team of more than 20 credit researchers and analysts that support Vanguard’s industry-leading $220 billion municipal bond mutual fund lineup¹. His previous roles include senior credit analyst and associate counsel at Vanguard.

Vanguard also announced a number of portfolio manager changes to its active taxable fixed income fund lineup:

• Arvind Narayanan, CFA^®, joined Vanguard in early 2019 as a senior portfolio manager and co-head of investment-grade credit. He has been added as a portfolio manager to Vanguard’s investment-grade credit portfolios and will be overseeing the credit sleeves of Vanguard Core Bond Fund and Vanguard Global Credit Fund.
  
  
• Mauro Favini has been added as a portfolio manager on Vanguard Emerging Market Bond Fund. Mr. Favini has been a portfolio manager and a member of Vanguard’s Emerging Markets and Sovereign Debt team since 2017.
  
  
• Gemma Wright-Casparius will focus on the short-, intermediate-, and long-term Treasury funds and the Inflation Protected Securities Fund, while relinquishing her Core Bond Fund portfolio management responsibilities.

Full details of the portfolio manager changes are included in the appendix.

Quantitative Equity Group

Vanguard’s Quantitative Equity Group (QEG), the firm’s internal active equity manager, has been overseeing assets for Vanguard’s actively managed equity funds since 1991. Today, QEG oversees 41 mandates with $42.1 billion in assets. The 34-member team of strategists, analysts, and portfolio managers applies risk-controlled, cost-effective processes to multiple strategies, including traditional alpha, factors, liquid alternatives, and managed payout.

Sharon Hill, PhD, joined QEG in September as senior portfolio manager, head of Alpha Equity – Global & Income. Her team manages active equity global and income-oriented mandates using quantitative investing methods. Prior to joining Vanguard in 2019, she was head of Equity Quantitative Research & Analytics at Macquarie Investment Management.

Continued investment in active management

In addition to building out its bench of internal equity and bond investment personnel, Vanguard has broadened its $1.4 trillion active fund lineup with the launch of four new active funds in the past year, including Vanguard International Core Stock Fund, Vanguard Global ESG Select Stock Fund, Vanguard Commodity Strategy Fund, and Vanguard Global Credit Bond Fund.

Vanguard’s history of superior performance is enabled by rigorous fund oversight, access to a diverse roster of world-class talent, and the ability to keep costs low. The approach is rooted in an adherence to consistent, repeatable processes over time, and a long-term perspective, which is critical to achieving success in active management.